One summer, university researchers caught three veeries from Tschopp’s property and fitted them with geolocators. The devices were simple — they just recorded data, but didn’t transmit it — so for the research to be complete, the tagged birds needed to be caught upon their return. Two were found back at Tschopp’s and the data showed that they had spent the winter in the Amazon rainforest.

“They migrate singly,” says Tschopp. “Each individual does the trip on its own. Nobody shows them the way. The navigation is genetically imprinted. They head off in the dark of the night, find their way to the Amazon and then they come back.”

Here’s Joel’s great piece.

Every fall a songbird known as the veery travels over 14,000 kilometres — from its summer home in the Pemberton valley to the jungles of the Amazon rainforest.

“Your readers would probably have heard it rather than seen it,” said Dr. Keith Hobson, a biology professor at Western University who recently concluded a study on the veeries’ migration patterns.

The robin-sized songbird is two-toned, with a brown back, and a lighter-coloured spotted front.

It’s a pretty bird, with a distinctive whistle that got its name from the cascade of “veer” notes that make up its ethereal, reedy song.

Veeries largely feed on insects, and Pemberton Valley’s riverbanks are an ideal environment. They are home to bottomland cottonwood forests, which are rife with food.

The birds arrive in May and leave in late August. “They have to breed and raise young and prepare for the long trek out again,” said Hobson.

For years, scientists have known that the birds travel from Canada to the Amazon.

What hasn’t been clear is the route they take. Some believed western veeries migrate directly south along the West Coast of the Americas.

But Hobson and his research partner, Kevin Kardynal, an employee of Environment and Climate Change Canada, found otherwise. The birds, they discovered, take a circuitous route.

During their fall migration, they go east over the coast, the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains. Then they cut south and eventually stop at the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, where they spend a week fattening up.

From there, they fly across the Gulf and the Caribbean Sea — a two-to-three-day journey — without rest. It’s an extraordinary feat, especially for a small songbird.

The route mimics that of their eastern counterparts, explained Hobson.

Veeries winter across the Amazon rainforest, including in pockets as far south as Paraguay. The birds time their journey with apparent winds, allowing them to conserve energy. Their return flight is much faster than their flight down.

Hobson tracked the birds using state-of-the-art trackers. Weighing less than a kilogram, the devices measure time and light levels, which are then translated into latitude and longitude coordinates.

The information gives an accurate depiction of the birds’ journey.

Yet unlike satellite trackers, which are too heavy to fasten to such a small bird, the trackers don’t provide real-time updating.

So that means that Hobson had to attempt to track down the very same birds he fastened the trackers to the following summer.

“It’s a bit of a risk,” explained Hobson, who completed the task in the summer of 2016. “You have to hope that your bird hasn’t gone very far.”

Hobson’s team retrieved around 50 per cent of the trackers, he said. Not bad — given the epic journey.

Veeries face major threats along the way, a big one being birds of prey.

North America’s ever-expanding development is also problematic, making it challenging for the birds to find safe places to land and feed.